Justice News

Highland Resident Sentenced For Child Pornography Offenses

James L. Porter, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that on April 29, 2016, Richard Hogg, 56, Highland, IL, was sentenced on an Indictment charging him, in Count 1, with Distribution of Child Pornography; in Counts 2 and 3, with Receipt of Child Pornography; in Count 4, with Access with Intent to View Child Pornography; and, in Count 5, with Possession of Prepubescent Child Pornography. Hogg received 210 months in federal prison on Counts 1-3 and 5 and 120 months on Count 4, all to run concurrently, to be followed by15 years of supervised release on each count, also to run concurrently, and was ordered to pay a $500 special assessment. Hogg was also ordered, pursuant to a plea agreement with the United States, to pay restitution in the amount of $2,000 to each of three victims depicted in the images and/or videos of child pornography that he distributed, received and/or possessed, and to forfeit the electronic media that contained these images and/or videos of child pornography. Hogg has been detained since he entered his guilty plea on January 25, 2016.

The charges arose after the FBI found information on the internet that Hogg had engaged in a sexually explicit chat with what he apparently believed to be a minor female, as well as other reports of Hogg soliciting minors to engage in sex acts. Based on this information, on February 3, 2015, the FBI went to Hogg’s residence. Hogg agreed to provide a voluntary statement, in which he admitted chatting online with a girl he believed to be sixteen years old who resided in New York, and that the chats were sexual in nature.

Hogg stated that he began viewing pornography in 2007, and that he gradually started viewing younger females. When asked if images of prepubescent children would be found on his computer, he replied in the affirmative. When asked what the pictures he owned showed with respect to the minor females, he replied "everything." When asked how often he chatted with young females online, he said that it likely occurred a "few times a month." Hogg estimated that he had approximately 1,000 images and four videos of child pornography on his computers, and that they would be found in the "My Pictures" folder on his computers. Hogg said that the images typically included a "dad" with their children.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Springfield Child Exploitation Task Force. The case was assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Angela Scott.